by Mary Jaine
Melanie seated herself at my invitation, and took a sheaf of papers from her briefcase, various contracts and agreements, which Yaz read through quickly, and nodded. Shari signed in duplicate and once Melanie had checked all was in order, she handed one set to Shari and smiled professionally.
"I understand that you have some information that might be of assistance. If possible, we need a recent photograph of the subject, plus any other personal information that might be of relevance in tracing the subject."
I went to my case and pulled out the folder we'd assembled, containing the most recent photographs we had of Nicky, a copy of his college certificate that Rick had found in with Barbara's things, and a copy of that letter.
We spent the next hour going over everything we knew or surmised about Nicky: the kind of job we thought he'd be doing, most likely a motor mechanic, given that he'd only ever wanted to be one, his height, and any identifying marks; this meant telling her about what our father had done to him, and that he may well have been extensively scarred.
Melanie made copious notes, asked some sharp, insightful questions about our relationship with him, and asked us how we wanted to approach him if and when the agency located him. We decided Yaz and Shari should make the initial contact. Nicky would have no reason to balk at them, as he'd never met them.
Once Melanie left, having left a cell phone keyed to the agency number, in case we needed to contact them or came into possession of any further information, we ordered room service, ate a light meal, and collapsed exhausted into bed. There was no wild thing that night; I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, as was Shari, and I knew Yaz and Rick were dragging as well, so our first night in America we slept the sleep of the truly exhausted.
I woke to bright sunshine pouring into the room, rolled-up in the warm bedclothes with Shari spooned up tight against me, and my arm around her. I looked around the unfamiliar room in slight confusion before memory reasserted itself, reminding me where I was; I was in America, actually in America, how bloody amazing was that!
I stretched as unobtrusively as possible, trying not to disturb Shari, but that little movement was enough to wake her. I saw her eyes flutter open, then her beautiful coral lips curved in a smile as she too stretched.
"Good morning baby!" she whispered, and burrowed down even further against me.
"Mmm! You're lovely and warm; don't move for a while, please, this feels so nice!" she murmured, her voice still blurred and scratchy with sleep. Of course I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her closer so I could soak up some of the sleep-warmth radiating off her.
I don't know how long we lay huddled together like that. It was so nice to just be warm and loving and quiet together. I was just beginning to get drowsy again, when there came a knock on the interconnecting door.
"Come in, Yaz, it's open!" I called, and Yaz came in, followed by Rick.
"Up guys, up, it's our first morning in America, I want to explore, but first, I want to eat a real, genuine American breakfast!" grinned Yaz, bouncing on the edge of the bed and shaking Shari and me around.
"Wakey-wakey, hands off cocks, on with socks!" she sang, being approximately 50% correct. "Come on Sleepy and Dopey, I want breakfast!"
"Who are you calling 'Sleepy'?" I retorted with a grin, getting a jab from Shari's elbow when she realised what I'd left her.
"If we're Sleepy and Dopey, what are you two then?" I grinned, and Yaz smiled adorably as she perched on the end of the bed.
"After the 'Welcome to America!' present I gave Yawning-Boy last night, he'd bloody better be 'Happy'!" she giggled, and even Shari grinned at that. I looked mock-disapprovingly at her.
"You're a bad girl and a very bad influence, no wonder my mum said I shouldn't play with you anymore!"
Yaz stuck out her tongue and bounced some more, jumbling Shari and me even further.
"Come on, get up you pair of old farts, breakfast awaits, chop-chop!"
I lunged over and grabbed her, making her squeal.
"Old farts, eh? Now you're going to pay!"
Yaz is ticklish, especially her sides, so I poked my fingers in her sides, making her squeal and giggle breathlessly as she squirmed.
"No, no, no, no, Bobby, Bobby, please, no, no, please, Shari, make him stop, no, no, please, Ricky help me...!"
Shari looked at her coolly.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I could have sworn you called us 'old farts', in fact, I'm sure that's what you said, so no, I think I'll let Bobby teach you a lesson. Suffer, little sister!"
I tortured her for a few more breathless seconds then let her go; she immediately reared back and slapped me on the arm, then squealed as I grabbed her again.
"No, no, no Bobby, no, don't you dare, I'm sorry, Bobby, I'm sorry, no...!" she gabbled as I threatened to tickle her again, so I hugged her and let her go. Rick gave her his hand and she slid over to him, slapping him on the arm as well.
"You could have helped me, you know...!" she grumbled. Ricky grinned at her expression.
"Yaz, Yaz, darling, sweet, simple little Yaz, how many times must I tell you; you messed with Big Ugly Bobby; when you mess with the bull, you get the horns!"
Yaz looked at him and snorted.
"You are so full of shit! Now you owe me a big 'Sorry' after breakfast. Are you up for it...stud?"
Rick coloured as Shari and I both tried without too much success to hide our own snorts of laughter. Eventually we stopped, Rick was now a deep plum-colour, and Yaz was smirking happily. Shari grinned and flapped her hand at the pair of them.
"Okay you two, out, I want to get a shower and get dressed. We'll meet you in your room in 10 minutes, order whatever you like for all of us, but I only really want a coffee."
Ten minutes later, we were sitting around the table staring in awe at what an American breakfast looked like.
"Bobby, what is it? Where do we start?" whispered Yaz, unable to take her eyes off the stacks of pancakes, tureens of scrambled eggs, mounds of bacon and sausage patties, a stack of toast at least six inches high, a huge jug of orange juice, a pair of coffee carafes in a double coffee maker, and another trolley loaded with various cereals, jugs of milk, pats of butter, and bottles of maple syrup.
"Yaz, what did you order?" I asked, and she looked at me in round-eyed wonder.
"When I called down for breakfast, the girl asked what we wanted, I didn't know whether they had any cereals or anything from England, so I asked her for a typical American breakfast for four; this is what arrived!"
Rick grinned at me and picked a plate up off the warmer, one eyebrow raised as he surveyed the mountain of food.
"Dash it all, Carruthers, we can't just stand here staring, I'm going in...it's a far, far better thing I do now, I do this for Queen and Country, etcetera, etcetera, tell mother my last words were of her...!"
So saying, he piled his plate with pancakes, bacon and sausage, poured maple syrup over it all, and dug in. Yaz leaned over and tried a tentative forkful, and her eyes lit up, so she grabbed a plate and started piling food onto it, doing her best to catch up with him. Shari shrugged at me, slid some scrambled eggs onto two slices of hot buttered toast, and poured herself a coffee. I followed suit, although I couldn't resist the sausage patties, which were delicious.
Breakfast took about an hour, as we tried to work our way through that mound of food, but in the end it defeated us.
"Now that was what I call a breakfast!" declared Rick, leaning back blissfully in his chair, his plate polished clean, and I had to agree; I was stuffed. I'd just put away enough cholesterol, saturated fats and protein to founder a rugby team, to Shari's frank admiration, although I had a strong feeling I'd be skipping lunch; another meal like that and I'd explode...
Once we'd recovered sufficiently, we began to think about our plans for the day. As we now appeared to have some free-time on our hands, Yaz wanted to investigate the malls in town; the hotel had given us some shopping guides, and Yaz and Shari were eager to do som
e serious mall-raiding. Rick and I wanted to explore Albany a little; this was the only other city I'd ever been to in my life (eight hours in Liverpool getting our passports didn't count).
I was pretty sure one mall is much like another, no matter which part of the world it's in, but Albany was bound to be different from Carlisle, and I wanted to actually put my feet on a foreign city's pavements, to walk down a street on the other side of the world.
We compromised eventually; we'd all go to the places the hotel Concierge recommended, the Colonie Center, and Crossgates, and once the girls found a mall where they could let their urge to shop express itself freely, then Rick and I were free to explore as much of Albany as we could find without getting lost or into trouble. That suited me fine; Shari was in the habit of hauling me into women's clothing stores, and asking my opinion of various frilly underthings, then disappearing to try them on, leaving me stranded in the lingerie section like some weird fetishist, getting strange, disgusted looks from the women pawing through the racks. I wasn't looking forward to that here; in England I just got odd looks from the shop assistants; over here I'd probably get arrested!
We took a cab to the first mall on our list, The Colonie Center, and once we walked in, Shari looked around happily, taking in the store directory in a kind of trance.
"Oh yes, at last, I have found my true home, you should go, Bobby darling, I might just be a while!" she beamed. Yaz was in a similar, blissed-out state, so Rick and I arranged a place and time to meet them, and beat a retreat, clutching the maps of Albany the hotel had provided.
Walking around the town centre was a unique experience; twice I nearly got mown-down by on-coming traffic because I was looking the wrong way when I crossed the street (we drive on the left in England, so traffic is usually coming from the right, and I kept forgetting myself and looking right as I stepped out; only Rick's reflexes saved me several times from getting smeared, until I figured-out that the cross-walks were probably the only way to cross the street safely).
I was amazed at the width of the streets; back home, Carlisle is a medieval city, or what's left of one, and like most English cities, the street plan echoes the village streets and ancient cattle tracks they were 900 years ago; the grid pattern of the streets here fascinated me, it all seemed so logical and well-ordered.
Rick and I wandered through shops and a few small pedestrian precincts, taking in the sights and sounds of a major American city (well, bigger than Carlisle, anyway!) noting familiar names like McDonald's and Starbucks, and just soaking up the atmosphere of somewhere so foreign and yet so familiar; I'd seen American cities so often on TV that it all looked very familiar indeed, but to be suddenly surrounded by that accent as well, for real, was almost overwhelming.
We'd just stepped out of a real, genuine doughnut shop, munching something called 'bear-claws', when in the alley at the side we spotted a young guy, probably my age, being worked over by three guys; he was giving a fair account of himself, not just cowering and letting them beat him, but there was only going to be one outcome. I was just deciding that it was none of our business when suddenly it was.
I heard Rick bark "Help him!" as he brushed past me, and as one of the three looked around in surprise, Rick punched him on the side of the head, sending him sprawling.
Now I had no choice; a second one rounded on me, so I belted him as hard as I could, the first time I'd ever hit another human being, and watched in gratified surprise as he folded without a sound. The guy who had been taking the beating grabbed the third one and spun him round, smacking him face first into the wall, hard; I heard the crunch of bone and saw blood spurt from his flattened nose. From the boneless way he slumped forward I could see that he'd lost all interest in the proceedings.
"Are you okay?" I heard Rick ask the guy whose party we'd gate-crashed, and he grinned back at us happily, even though he had an abraded cheek and a split lip.
"Never felt better! I'm sure glad you fellers decided to step in; I thought I had them there for a while, but...!"
I had to grin at his breezy confidence, as did Rick.
"What was that about, anyway?" I asked, looking curiously at the quite well-dressed trio we'd just disposed of, and he grinned.
"That guy over there's in college with my girl; he wouldn't leave her alone, I kicked his ass, so he and his friends were returning the favor, then you guys jumped in, so thanks, guys, I owe you one!"
One of the assailants was stirring and the guy we'd rescued walked over, lifted him by his hair, and jabbed him smartly in the jaw, watching his eyes roll up as he passed out again.
"Goodnight, John-Boy!" he grinned, patting him on the cheek, then stood up and stuck his hand out.
"Hi, my name's Leon, Leon Shoemaker, thanks for jumping in when you did, my girl's gonna be real pleased you were here today!"
Rick and I introduced ourselves, and he cocked his head at our accents.
"English, hey? So's my boss, that's why I recognized your accents. Can I buy you guys a drink, or maybe a coffee? It's the least I can do to thank you for saving my ass!"
We nodded, so Leon dusted himself off, ran his fingers through his dark golden hair and walked with us out of the alley and into a coffee shop. Over a Skinny Latte he told us about himself; he was Lead Mechanic in a specialist auto shop, working on classic and performance British cars. He had a few days vacation coming, was going home for a few days, and had come downtown to buy a gift for his mother, who lived in a nearby town, Oneonta; he'd stopped-off to get a coffee, then he got jumped, and then we happened along.
We got talking about our respective work; we told him we had just started a property renovation business in the North of England, and he told us about his job here in Albany.
"I tell you, my boss knows every Brit sports car that was ever made; he's like a genius, any one of us comes up against some dumb, stupid fault that makes no sense, he'll get in there, re-route a cable and tighten a bolt, and she's running sweet as can be; he says it's because low-volume Brit sports cars were built by loonies, sorry, 'eccentrics', so you gotta think like one, and sometimes the only cure is to take out the ashtray, tap it twice on the dash, and put it back in again; he doesn't know why that works, but you know what? It usually does, and it's fucking weird...!"
Rick and I laughed out loud at his description of our proud motoring heritage, and I decided I liked him; the girls would like him, too, so I invited him to have dinner with us that night, and to bring his girl, so she could see not everything from Britain was skewed off-centre!
We chatted for a while, telling each other a little about ourselves, about our girls, about our impressions of Albany so far, and finally parted with a promise to meet again at the hotel at 7 o'clock, and we'd take it from there. With that, Leon headed back to his car, while Rick and I retraced our steps until we found The Colonie Center. On the way there I asked Rick what had prompted him to jump into the fight, and he looked strangely at me.
"Because you told me to, Bobby, why do you think? You shouted 'Help him!' so I did!"
I looked at him in puzzlement. I remembered it differently, I remembered Rick shouting 'help him!', I distinctly heard him say it, and I told him just that, but Rick was adamant that it was my idea to jump in, when I knew damned well it wasn't me. I was feeling unsettled about the whole incident until I saw the girls, weighed-down with bags and packages, and looking shopped-out and very pleased with themselves, so I put it out of my mind; now was not the time to tell Shari about getting into a fight, knowing as I did how sensitive she was about violence of any kind.
Shari jumped up and hugged me, eager to show me what she'd bought me, shirts, cufflinks, belts, that kind of thing, and a bag from somewhere called "Victoria's Secret", which sounded familiar.
"That's for a special occasion, Bobby, just for you!" she grinned, possibly the dirtiest grin I'd ever seen, and now the combination of that grin and her pressed against me was making all sorts of nice things happen lower down.
"Down,
boy, we have all evening, pace yourself!" she grinned, surreptitiously tweaking the end of my cock, making me gasp and grin. Yaz had a similar bag, so I assumed Rick had just got the same message from her, to judge by the goofy grin and slightly glazed expression on his face. I hailed a cab to take us back to the hotel, and while we were loading the mountain of bags and boxes into the cab, we told her about our little adventure, Shari clucking when I told her I'd hit someone, but telling Rick and me she was glad we'd helped someone who'd needed a hand. Both girls seemed eager to meet our new friend at dinner that night.
Once back at the hotel, Shari made dinner reservations at a Malaysian restaurant recommended by the hotel, Yono's on Chapel Street, then closed and locked the interconnecting door between the two suites, and grinned at me.
"We have reservations for 7.30, that's over two hours away, we're in America, Americans are big on contact sports, so do you want to tackle me a little, baby?"
I needed no further encouragement, not after that little display in the Colonie Center, almost breaking the world record for getting out of my clothes. Shari smiled mischievously and dropped her jacket on the ground behind her and kicked off her shoes as she advanced on me.
"I think you need to help me, Bobby, I can't remember how to get this thing off!" she pouted, pointing at her blouse, so I obliged, kissing her neck every time I popped a button, until it was completely undone, her two small, perfect little breasts cradled in her lacy white bra. She shrugged the blouse off her shoulders, giving me something more to kiss as I popped the fastening on her jeans and hooked my fingers in the waistband, pushing them down.
"Thank you baby!" she breathed, that grin on her face again. "I couldn't figure out how to get those off either; you're so multi-talented, Bobby, I think I'll keep you!"
That earned her a pinch on her tight little bottom, making her squeal and jump; lucky thing I was there to catch her!
